William Godbout was a beloved figure in the Bay Area’s burgeoning computing community in the 1970s and ’80s.

The 79-year-old Concow resident, who died in the Camp Fire, ran Godbout Electronics, a store in a Quonset hut near the Oakland airport where enthusiasts could get chips and other parts for their homemade (aka homebrew) computers.

A GoFundMe campaign that has been set up for his wife, Karen, and his daughter, Brandi Tuck, survivors of the Camp Fire, is filled with comments from donors who remember his role in the computing industry.

“My small way to help the family of a personal computer pioneer after a terrible loss,” said one commenter, Steve Rodia.

Godbout Electronics, later renamed to the more well-known CompuPro, was one of the makers of the S-100 bus, which Godbout helped develop and whose function was to transfer data between components in a computer. The S-100 bus was a backbone of the homebrew computer scene, which led tinkerers — including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak — to create personal computers.

Godbout eventually moved his business to Hayward, renaming it Viasyn, and some of the military-surplus parts he sold also were used by electronic music enthusiasts and others.

Steven Levy described Godbout in his book “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution,” in 1984: “Godbout, a gruff, beefy, still-active pilot who hinted at a past loaded with international espionage and intrigues for government agencies whose names he could not legally utter, would take these parts, throw his own brand name on them, and sell them.”

Former employee Tamara Lester remembered Godbout in much the same way, saying in a phone interview that he wanted everyone to learn how to fly, too: “One day he said he signed us all up for ground school.”

Lester, who did everything from handling the problems desk to soldering to putting together music kits, also recalled that Godbout would make sure to feed all his early employees — about a dozen of them when she started working at the Oakland office in 1977 — by stocking up on food in the office or taking them out for food and drinks.

“Bill was the softest, kindest person underneath all the gruffness,” she said.

Godbout’s grandson, Robert Tuck, told the New York Times that his grandfather had stayed behind during the fire to save his cats.